The Girl in the Silver Mask

By Dale Rominger

Drake Ramsey is a successful author who has just moved to New Orleans to be with his love, the brilliant and now pregnant Zuri Manyika. While Zuri works as a professor at Loyola University, Drake spends his days in Treme Coffeehouse, contemplating a sequel without a clue his world is about to be turned upside down.

Drakes horizons expand when his new friend, Adam Boateng, relays stories of life in early New Orleans that strangely hint he may have been there himself. After Drake invites his old buddy, Gerard Schleiermacher, to join them for Halloween, he looks forward to experiencing New Orleans at its most outrageous. But just as they learn that Zuris old Zimbabwean adversary has escaped from prison, Adam becomes a suspect in a murder. Now Drake is left to speculate if Adam is capable of killing, if the vengeful prisoner is guilty, or if a voodoo priest is responsible. As Drake, Zuri, and Gerard risk their lives in pursuit of the truth, bayous and beignets interweave with second lines and graveyards as a vampire lurks in the shadows. Will Drake ever find the killer?

In this gripping mystery, a best-selling author transforms into an amateur sleuth intent on finding a murderer after a wild Halloween in New Orleans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532011238

Dale Rominger

Dale Romoinger has been an educator, speaker, world traveller, consultant, and writer. He has travelled extensively worldwide assisting in development projects and creating educational and exposure programs with international partners. Now retired, Dale lives in Seattle with his wife, Roberta, reading, writing, managing his website, and cooking.

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Copyright © 2017 Dale Rominger.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1124-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1125-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1123-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919987

iUniverse rev. date: 02/21/2017

Contents

Acknowledgments

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

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13

14

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29

Epilogue

Notes

For Gerry,

a friend

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Alan Zakem for the original image he created for the book cover. I first saw Alan’s work during a visit to New Orleans and asked if he would consider doing the cover for The Girl in the Silver Mask . I’m grateful he agreed.

Alan is a master of both digital shooting and printing techniques, and he pursues images that resonate with the vibrancy he identifies with the regenerative nature of New Orleans.

Having left his native Florida for New Orleans in 2003, photographer Alan has connected deeply with his new Louisiana home. While studying at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art, he was moved to photograph the vibrant action of New Orleans nightscapes, and he has since created a growing body of work on this subject that defines him as one of the top rising contemporary artists.

To view more of Alan’s work, please go to his website, Zakem Art, at www.ZakemArt.com.

1

A few days before Halloween, I was sitting in the Treme Coffeehouse, counting my heartbeats. I read an article that said all mammals, from elephants to mice to human beings, get a fairly fixed number of heartbeats in their lifetimes. Apparently, on average, human beings get around 2,210,000,000 before they drop dead. That sounds like a lot, but sitting there, I calculated that assuming my average heartrate is sixty-two beats per minute and that I’m forty-two years old, I’ve already used up 1,369,570,576 of mine. That only leaves me with 840,429,424, and I figure I’m going to use up a lot of those just watching The Big Bang Th eory .

You might be wondering why I was sitting in a café and counting my heartbeats. The thing is this: Zuri is pregnant. I’m going to have to rethink some things.

Ever since I moved to New Orleans nine months ago, when not coming to the coffeehouse, I’ve been going down to the Café Du Monde in the French Quarter, getting in the takeout line around the back, buying a small bag of beignets and a large coffee au lait, finding a public bench by the café, sitting, watching the tourists, and listening to a three-man band—trombone, trumpet, and sax—play some damn good jazz.

In case you don’t know, a beignet is a square doughnut covered in powdery white sugar—a lot of sugar. And there’s no damn hole. The person who created the first beignet was nobody’s fool. I mean, a no-hole doughnut—how great is that? There are three of those square suckers in a bag. You have to eat them while they’re hot. When I first started this routine, I took two of them home. When they’re hot, they’re out of this world, but you don’t want to eat them cold. Trust me on this. But let’s face it: a deep-fried no-hole doughnut smothered in sugar has got to be reducing my 840,429,424 allotted heartbeats. I’m just saying. Makes you think.

By the way, the name’s Drake—Drake Ramsey. People call me Drake.

That’s right. I’m the Drake Ramsey, the amazingly famous author of the best-selling Proustian sci-fi novel The Woman in Blue Skies, about Chad Steel and Rashida traveling through the galaxy. And yes, all that Twitter noise about a famous actor thinking about buying the option is true. Got a call from my publisher a few days ago with the news. Now, I can’t tell you who the famous actor is—not yet anyway—but do the initials BP mean anything to you? Yeah, yeah. That sounds great, BP playing CS. But to be honest, I’m a little skeptical. I mean, really. Is BP man enough to pull off my creation, Chad Steel the space cowboy? I doubt it. But then again, who is? And as far as Rashida is concerned, if Jennifer Lawrence isn’t interested, then I’m calling the whole thing off.

Get this. Just the other day, I was in the 89.9 WWNO studios, being interviewed about The Woman in Blue Skies and my plans for another Rashida and Chad Steel knock-it-out-of-the-park book. I said something like I’m not in any rush, and I talked about going down to the Café Du Monde, eating my beignets on Decatur Street, and feeling happy listening to the three-man band. Next thing I know, the website for The Woman in Blue Skies is getting a shitload of messages telling me beignets are going to make me fat and lazy and eventually kill me, so I’d better start writing the next novel, and now! And how dare I sit around listening to jazz on Decatur, when I should be writing the new Chad Steel space adventure? I should get off my ass and write pronto! Can you believe that? Well, I couldn’t, so I wrote back the following: All you fans telling me what I should be doing—go fuck yourselves. And for good measure, I added, If you don’t stop e-mailing and tweeting this shit, I’ll never write another Chad Steel story ever. So fuck off! I mean, who do they think they are?

Zuri told me yesterday that now that I’m going to be a father, I have to stop swearing. That’s rich coming from her. Instead, she said, I should quote Aristophanes to my fans. I had to google the old goat. Of course, what she was going for was To be insulted by you is to be garlanded with lilies. I’m not sure that would deliver the impact I was going for.

I guess she’s right. But what’s a person to do? I used to be a reporter on the mean streets of Fremont, California, where a little language is required and might even save your life. I kid you not. And Chad Steel—for God’s sake, he’s a space cowboy roaming the galaxy, worshipped by his friends and feared by his enemies. I mean, come on.

Despite my fans, I’ve been sitting in the Treme Coffeehouse almost every day for a week at my table in the corner, the table that lets me survey the entire café, thus honoring the universal imperative of never sitting with your back to the door. I sit with a cup of joe, thinking hard about the next Rashida and Chad Steel adventure. I don’t actually have a plot idea yet, because I can’t stop thinking about the title. I know. Little bit of horse-before-the-cart stuff, but have you noticed how many successful books out there have the word girl in the title? Years ago it was horse. A while back, it was wife. Now it’s girl. I think that Larsson fella got it started. Get this: Gossip Girl, Gone Girl, The Goose Girl, Nowhere Girl, Girl Waits with Gun, Little Girl Lost, The Girl on the Train, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, The Good Girl, The Girl in the Ice, The Miracle Girl, The Luckiest Girl Alive, The Other Boleyn Girl, Lost Girl, Girl with the Pearl Earring, Little Drummer Girl, Girl with the Golden Eyes, The Girl in the Red Coat, The Girl of Fire and Thornes, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, The Girl at the Lion D’Or, Funny Girl, Girl Interrupted, The House Girl, The Girl with All the Gifts, The Girl with Ghost Eyes, The Winter Girl, This Girl, The Windup Girl, The Girl Who Chased the Moon, Twenties Girl, The Girl You Left Behind, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, Slave Girl, Ghost Girl, The Girl from the Train, The Crow Girl, Gonzo Girl, The Dead Girl, The Clay Girl, Girl at War, The Zigzag Girl, The Girl in the Castle, Vinegar Girl, and, of course, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

You see my problem. How can I figure out a plot, when I’m going crazy trying to think of a title with the word girl in it? It’s important. I’m sure you see my point. And how many first-time best-selling authors’ second books have flopped? A lot! Well, not mine. I’m covering my ass on this. Maybe I’ll call it Chad Steel and the Painted Girl. Or The Blessed Girl Meets Chad Steel. Or She Was Only a Quarter of a Girl Until She Met Chad Steel. Or The Girl on Chad Steel’s Starship.

Fortunately, I’ve got time. Ever since The Woman in Blue Skies went viral, I haven’t had to live off my grandmother’s inheritance. I’m loaded! How else do you think Zuri and I got ourselves an ace house in Treme? You can bet your sweet life it wasn’t on Zuri’s university salary. No, thanks to The Woman in Blue Skies, we’re living in a nice place, and I can eat beignets and listen to jazz pretty much any time I want, my fans notwithstanding.

Zuri is a professor in African, African American, and cross-cultural studies at Loyola University. She’s one smart, tough lady. And gorgeous. Her mom sent her to America when she was eight years old, telling her to make a life for herself. And that she did. She might be my African princess, but she’s an all-American girl too—an African, all-American pregnant girl.

We stayed in her small apartment near the university when I first arrived, but eventually, a big advance was negotiated, followed by big sales. Royalties started landing in my account, so we decided to buy ourselves a place on Ursulines Avenue, near the corner with Robertson Street. This was a big decision because Treme is a long way from Loyola. However, Zuri was insistent that she wanted to move to the area, not least because it is the oldest African American community in the United States. Hell, when it started, people were more African than African American. It was okay with me, and I figured a mixed-race couple might fit in. So, three or four times a week, she and Adam, our next-door neighbor (now, there’s a story!), walk through the French Quarter and catch the St. Charles streetcar to Loyola. Adam works at Tulane University, which is just a few more steps along St. Charles. It seems like a bit of a trek to me, but they love it, even in the rain.

Adam and Zuri were friends and colleagues before we bought the house on Ursulines. It was Adam who told us that two attached shotguns next door to him were for sale by the same owner. People are converting double shotguns into single homes, removing parts of the dividing wall to create bigger rooms. We jumped on it and did the same. I guess we can be accused of contributing to gentrification. Fair’s fair, but Treme south of the I-10 is changing fast, and we’re part of it.

A shotgun house, in case you’ve never been to New Orleans, is a narrow rectangular building. Rooms are arranged one behind the other, with doors at the front and back. Usually, the living room is in the front, and the kitchen is in the back. We kept the kitchen in the back, looking out onto the backyard, and removing the dividing wall gave us space for both cooking and eating. However, we moved the living room to the middle of the house, again going for double-wide. In the middle of the room is a fireplace, which I think is pretty damn cool, standing there on its own. The smaller rooms make up a guest bedroom, our main bedroom, and my study. We made sure all the rooms have windows. Some shotguns have few windows along the sides of the house. We’ve done our best to refurbish the natural wood, especially the floors, so we have a lot of rugs but no wall-to-wall carpets. The rooms have some pretty fine moldings and woodwork, and in the living room, there are even some ceiling medallions.

We got all the mod cons, and we have a kitchen to die for. We painted both inside and out. We got a new roof and did a lot of gardening. You name it, we did it. Obviously, we have two front doors. We use the door on the right to enter the house. The left door leads into a guest bedroom, so if friends want to enter their room directly, it’s no problem.

We loved the place the minute we saw it. Shutters on the doors and windows, the gable on top, those classy iron ventilators. As I think about it now, it dawns on me we’re going to have to turn the smallish storage room just before the kitchen into a room for the baby.

Adam told me that shotgun houses are an architectural style that tracks back to Africa and Haiti. He says, with more conviction than is necessary, that the name came from the Fon nu people of the Dahomey Kingdom in West Africa. They had a term to-gun, which means place of assembly, and through time, slavery, and passage through Haiti, it got turned into shotgun. He seemed pretty damn clear that our shotguns were linked historically to the Dahomey Kingdom, and it didn’t exactly please him. When I asked him what was up with that, all he said was The Fon sold slaves to the whites. You learn a lot by hanging around Adam.

I’m happy enough in Treme. The Treme Coffeehouse was a discovery. It’s located on the corner of Villere and St. Philip, diagonal from the Treme Center. The café is small, funky, and down-home. It has one main room with three large windows, each with green shutters, and a green door. There’s a light brown leather sofa for two to the right of the front door as you enter. Along the wall are two comfy chairs. One is brown leather similar to the sofa, but they are certainly not a set. There are seven tables with yellowish-green tops. Or are they greenish-yellow tops? I don’t know. There’s one table that can seat four people. All the rest are for two, which, in my mind, is perfect. There are two ceiling fans, and several cheap lamps hang from the ceiling. The walls are natural brick with wood beams visible. They are always covered with paintings and photos from NOLA artists. To the left as you enter is the counter where you order your food and drink. The kitchen is off the service area. The whole place looks real nice. There’s nothing perfect in this world, but this coffeehouse comes close for me.

The café is run by TJ, and he always has a couple young folks working with him behind the counter. TJ has put the café on the tourist radar, which is smart, but most of the time, it’s locals you’ll run into. It’s Treme.

TJ has done me right. When I first went in and explained that Zuri and I were new in the neighborhood, he was quick to welcome me and give me the scoop on what I should know. He even took me to the Candlelight Lounge on Robertson on my first Wednesday night to hear the Treme Brass Band. Now, that was a blowout!

A little heads-up: if you really want to experience NOLA jazz, then skip Bourbon Street, and for God’s sake, avoid the Hard Rock Cafe. Go instead to the Candlelight Lounge on a Wednesday night and hear the Treme Brass Band. The lounge is a smallish rectangular room—it’s humble, to say the least. To the left as you enter are a small stage area and a bar with ten or twelve barstools. The rest of the room has a dozen tables covered with red tablecloths. There is food on a folding table in the back—when I was there, it looked like stew of some kind served in a plastic bowl. Don’t serve yourself. You’ll get a friendly earful from one of the two women who work the bar and tables. As soon as we entered and everyone did a quick check to see who walked in, one of those fine ladies took ahold of my hand and asked me what I wanted. This is a down and dirty place, no place to be sensitive. Don’t expect a glass with your beer. It would be embarrassing to ask for one. But the place is friendly and real.

That first night, TJ and I sat at the bar and drank Dixie beer. The band was scheduled for nine and began shortly after ten, which apparently was normal. They were great and, in this small space, wonderfully loud. In no time, forty or so people were crowded in front of the band, dancing, including the two women serving us. The sax and trumpet liked stepping into the crowd. The lounge was filled with locals and visitors.

Apparently, where we live used to be a rough neighborhood, the kind of place that would have made the mean streets of Fremont look tame, or so TJ told me. Ursulines dead-ends into the delivery entrance at the back of a funeral home. There’s a big sign:

Charbonnet

FUNERAL HOME

Serving New Orleans Families Since 1883

DELIVERY ENTRANCE

Ursulines picks up again north of I-10, but that damn freeway cuts the street, and Treme, in two. TJ said the end of Ursulines and the entrance to the funeral home used to be a meeting place for prostitutes and drug dealers—and their clients, of course.

On the corner of Ursulines Avenue and Robertson Street, just down from our shotgun, is a big faded-blue house with the following sign:

RUTH’S COZY CORNER

Specializing in Home Cooked

Meals & Sandwiches

DIXIE 45 BEER

From what the locals tell me, Ruth’s Corner really was cozy until a bar owner from over near Esplanade came into Ruth’s one night and shot her dead. Something about a dispute over live music. It’s been shuttered up ever since.

Now? Well, now there’s not a prostitute or drug dealer in sight, and there haven’t been any killings in a while either. Word is, it wasn’t so much the law dogs that sorted it out as the local people, who had had enough. Good for them is all I can say. Having said that, I just remembered. A woman was shot dead up on Bayou Road north of the I-10 a couple of days ago. Come Sunday, her name will be on the Victims of Violence Memorial Wall at St. Anna’s Episcopal Church on Esplanade Street. Every time there’s another murder in NOLA, they put the person’s name on the wall. More than two thousand names have been added since 2007.

I think it’s apparent already that I’ve been around more than a few blocks, and I’m talking about damn big blocks. Just fact, no brag. You don’t work the mean streets as a reporter without becoming somewhat streetwise. Nobody’s fool, if you know what I mean. So you might be surprised when I tell you that upon arriving in New